Touraine Primeur poised to get a new lease of life

The Touraine Primeur Wine Competition is due to be re-launched after a break. - Photo credit : Ingrid Proust

“The quality of Touraine Primeur wines is superb every year. They are nice wines that consumers look forward to and are very satisfied with. I produce around 30 hl and sell them within just a few weeks at the cellar door, in supermarkets and restaurants”. Cédric Chollet, a winegrower in Onzain (Loir-et-Cher), viewed the decision by the Touraine producers’ organisation to cancel the Touraine Primeur competition in 2018 and all PR and marketing revolving around the wines as a huge disappointment. At the time, the producers elected to the organisation’s board felt that promotion of a wine produced on such a small scale – just a few hundred hectolitres are made annually - was “no longer consistent with the appellation’s new strategy” and that the “primeur” moniker had become “less and less positive”.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Touraine Primeur. In 2018 and 2019, Touraine Primeur wines were selected by a tasting panel set up by the former director of the local wine federation FAV 37, Guillaume Lapaque, who was summoned last autumn by trading standards for not complying with regulations. Cédric Chollet, Kevin Vigné, the director of the Le Cellier du Beaujardin co-operative in Bléré (Indre-et-Loire), and other Primeur producers then decided to take matters into their own hands.

Introduction of a specific levy

“We want a competition that complies with the regulations and we do not want to go behind the back of the Touraine producers’ organisation. We have asked the organisation to introduce a specific levy of €3 /hl to enable us to self-finance a competition”, explained Kevin Vigné. The initiative was well received... “The proposal has been accepted in principle by the organisation’s board, but still has to be rubber-stamped at our AGM due to take place this summer”, said Marie Refalo, the director of the Touraine producers’ organisation.